A Scottish man is facing deportation from Kyrgyzstan after causing offence to locals; that saying 'when in Rome, do as the Romans do' is not a bad adage when in a foreign land.

Scottish mine worker Michael McFeat, from Abernethy, Scotland, should have given it credence.

He has lost his job at the Kumtor open pit gold mine run by Canadian firm Centerra Gold and is persona non grata in Kyrgyzstan.

He was working in Kyrgyzstan when he decided to compare a local dish to a horse's penis; he did so on social media and it has cost him dearly.

The food in question is a national dish and much loved by the people of that country. He posted an image of 'Kyrgyz co-workers queuing for a "chuchuk" horsemeat sausage' and accompanied it with derision.

It could have been New Year high spirits but McFeat was arrested at Manas International Airport, close to the capital Bishkek, on Sunday, and will now be deported.

He posted the image on Facebook December 31, 2015, with a caption that read ""The Kyrgyz people queuing out of the door for there (sic) special delicacy the horse’s penis!!!""

He quickly deleted the post and offered his apology for the caption but he is still toast.

The official line from the authorities is that he is being deported as his work documentation was not up to scratch.

However most people believe it is due to the horse's penis reference which did receive an angry response on local radio.

According to BBC News "the post had caused a lot of discontent and resentment on the part of local staff, who demanded respect for the traditions of the people of Kyrgyzstan, as well as an apology from the mine's management company."

Scotland has some strange dining traditions such as deep-fried Mars chocolate bars and haggis but I doubt they would be so sensitive.

However Kyrgyzstan is not Scotland or the UK and we should respect local traditions and sensibilities when possible.

So if Kyrgyzstan is part of your travel plans don't make fun of the food.

Op-Ed: It looks like a row over a washing machine New Year's Eve resulted in multiple deaths.

The shootings took place at a residential property in Rowland Heights, Los Angeles, California.

In what almost sounds like the plot of a comedy farce USA Today reports Saturday "A man shot and killed his wife and two others in his home on New Year's Eve before his son wrestled the gun away and fatally shot him."

The tragic events apparently followed a disagreement over a washing machine.

The original shooter is described as a heavy drinking 54-year-old with a large gun collection and this is not the first time police have been called to the property.

Police have questioned witnesses as they try to piece together just what happened.

In that case how come the man was still able to have a large gun collection on hand when he flipped out?

The son named as 33-year-old Christopher Morey has been arrested on suspicion of murdering his father; was it self-defence or motivated by something else.

Morey is being held on $1 million bail which seems an unusual step in the USA.

Here in the UK we have become used to reading or hearing news from across the pond about shooters who escape justice because they claimed to have killed in self-defence.

The ﻿father﻿ shot and killed three people, Morey's 54-year-old bedridden mother, his 48-year-old girlfriend and 27-year-old Ernesto Calzadilla who was visiting, before the gun was wrestled from him and he was subsequently shot dead.

A Go Fund Me page has been launched to help pay for funeral costs for Calzadilla, a father of a young child.

Saturday it has been widely reported "Obama to announce executive action on guns" and you have to say 'at last. However the powerful gun lobby in the USA will fight any restrictions tooth and nail and in a presidential election year the Democrats and the Republicans will not want to make waves.

Bjorn the reindeer is safe after making a bid for freedom from an event at a Tesco supermarket in Carlton, Nottinghamshire, in the UK.

Bjorn, nine-years-old, was caught on 'camera' by local man Warren Porter who at first glance thought a large dog was legging it up Carlton Hill. As Bjorn got closer to Mr Porter the poor man could not believe his eyes.

Warren now has his '15 minutes of fame' as the image goes viral.

Startled by a car horn reindeer Bjorn was able to slip the rope tethering him and scarper.

While the story may sound funny it is no joke for the animal. He was obviously scared and he or a passer-by could have been injured.

Perhaps next time Tesco will make do with a large toy reindeer or perhaps a robotic one.

According to eyewitnesses reindeer Bjorn was nearly hit by a bus; that could have led to a very different story maybe including human casualties as well as Bjorn.

The event was being staged by the Animal Company; their director commented that Bjorn was captured within 10 minutes and that he is 'fine and 'resting'.

He praised the animal's trainers saying that their training had paid off and ensured that Bjorn was returned safe and sound quickly.

Another representative of Animal Company said reindeer are 'flight' animals by nature; she said they are fine in a pen but when 'free' of any tether run off.

The Nottingham Post has quite a few comments from locals including this from Gemma Green, who lives in nearby Hasting Street and saw the animal galloping past her house on Sunday afternoon.

"I was putting some Christmas cards up in the window and just saw it come charging down the street," she said. "Then I saw a group of people following it. It was quite strange. It's like the scene from Arthur Christmas where Santa loses his reindeer. I thought I was seeing things at first. "My partner was out walking the dog and he had to move out the way because it came charging past him."

It all sounds a rather surreal experience.

According to BBC News "A Tesco spokesman said they are "pleased he was back in time to help Santa with some important deliveries this week" but that sounds more like a 'Scrooge# moment from the supermarket giant.

Dutchman and father-of-four Leonardus Bijlsma, 55, was found guilty Friday of operating a drug trafficking organisation across the U.K. Bijlsma used a fleet of fake ambulances to ship drugs from the south of England to the north and from the east to the west.

The gang used ports from Essex to East Yorkshire.

In June four men were arrested in connection with this gang's drug smuggling. Bijlsma was described in the Birmingham court Friday as the operations' 'right-hand' man.

Two other men pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing; they are Olof Schoon, 38, described as the main-player, and 51-year-old Richard Engelsbel.

The fake ambulances had hidden compartments where large quantities of drugs were stashed before being brought into the U.K.

The gang also used fake invoices and patient details claiming they had transported patients to the Royal London Hospital but that facility had no record of any such patient transfers. When police investigated further the addresses, ages and names of patients were all fake.

"In total an estimated £420m of high-purity drugs with a street value of £1.6bn are believed to have been smuggled into the UK" reports BBC News.

Leonardus Bijlsma will be sentenced at a later date.

The operation was cheeky to say the least; during its successful operations dangerous drugs made the gang money but at what price?

Police officers discovered the ambulances were carrying packages of cocaine, heroin and amphetamine as well as thousands of suspected ecstasy pills.

Smart dressing 'fights antibiotic resistance' caught my eye Monday but it was not what I thought.

I wondered, but only briefly, how your appearance could affect antibiotic resistance. The truth is the news is regarding dressings for wounds.

In what could be a great step forward scientists at Bath University have discovered that "A medical dressing that changes colour when it detects infection could cut the unnecessary use of antibiotics."

Antibiotics were once upon a time touted as miraculous but overprescribing of the 'wonder drug' was self-defeating.

Horror stories of wounds infected with MRSA, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, resulted in amputated limbs for some of those affected.

Researches have been working on developing a new wave of super antibiotics to cope with the super bugs but the development of 'smart dressings' could prove a huge step forward.

The current standard practice is to prescribe antibiotics for many wounds including burns before a diagnosis is confirmed. This is because removing dressings too soon can be painful for the patient and increase the amount of scarring.

It works by releasing fluorescent dye from tiny capsules when toxins are given out by bacteria in a wound.

This allows doctors to identify bacterial infections and treat them more quickly, particularly in children with burns.

Researchers said it could help to save lives.

Children with burn wounds are particularly susceptible to bacterial infections because of their immature immune systems.

These infections can slow the healing of wounds, leading to longer stays in hospital and sometimes permanent scarring. In severe cases, infections can kill.

Leading the project into smart dressings is Dr Toby Jenkins, reader in biophysical chemistry at Bath; the research team has been awarded almost £1m by the Medical Research Council and it sounds like this time it may be money well spent.

Popular hunk and veteran American actor George Clooney is in Edinburgh Thursday and he has been supporting a homeless charity.

George was mobbed by fans when he visited a sandwich shop in Scotland's capital city Edinburgh.

He visited "the Social Bite cafe, which donates all its profits to homeless people, leaving $1000 (about £650) at the cafe for the cause."

Around 200 fans were over the moon to get close to George and he was generous to fans, staff and the media posing for s series of fun shots some of which have already been posted online.

The publicity from today will help Social Bite and in turn help others through money raised.

Social Bite operates five cafes in Scotland; they claim to be a "social business."

Image credit - Social Bite

According to Mashable "One in four staff at the cafes used to be homeless, and all profits from the business go to a number of charities."

Social Bite online say this about a "social business."

We were inspired by the philosophy of a Nobel Peace Prize winning economist called Prof. Muhammad Yunus.

Our founders Josh and Alice came across Prof. Yunus in 2011 when Josh started reading his book “Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism”.

In his book Yunus describes the idea of a ‘Social Business’, where he was creating businesses, but not for the traditional purpose of making money, but for solving social challenges. Josh and Alice became so inspired by this idea that they decided to fly to Bangladesh to meet with Yunus. They travelled to Dhaka in October 2011.

Pyotr Pavlensky, Russia’s controversial artist and political activist, is in trouble again. This time he set fire to the door of the country's security service, the FSB, in Moscow.

There is no doubt that he did the deed; he posed, and was pictured, standing in front of the blazing door with a petrol can in hand.

In 2013 Pavlensky got naked and nailed his genitals to the ground to protest "apathy" in the country.

At that time we reported "There are protests and then there are protests. You may have joined a march, shouted your anger, or waved a banner but one man in Russia, Sunday, got naked and nailed his genitals to the ground to protest "apathy" in the country.

Pyotr Pavlensky, 29, a Russian artist could have faced 15 days in jail for the "stunt" but Monday he was freed.

Sunday the man got naked in Red Square, in front of Lenin's mausoleum, before nailing his scrotum to the "cobblestones".

He was there one and a half hours before being arrested; questioned later on the cause of his protest the BBC reports "Pavlensky said his "Fixation" act was a metaphor for apathy in Russia".

Sunday was chosen as the day of protest as it was Police Day in Russia. "Pavlensky said in a statement: "When the authorities turn the country into one big prison, openly robbing the populace and channelling funds to increase and enrich the police and other security agencies, society accepts arbitrariness and, having forgotten its advantage in numbers, brings the triumph of the police state closer through its inaction.""

Mr Pavlensky could be re-arrested as earlier documents presented to a judge were deemed invalid. Footage of his brutal protest quickly appeared online but was blocked by state authorities. You may still find clips online though."

In 2014 Pavlensky was charged "with vandalising a historic bridge in the centre of St Petersburg, where he burned stacks of tyres to imitate street scenes from the Ukrainian capital when president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted in February 2014."

Other actions have included wrapping himself in barbed wire and cutting off his earlobe! He also sewed his mouth shut in protest of the incarceration of a Russian punk band.

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